2018 Creative Tour with JCMA

5th Collaboration

We produced a special creative tour for Japanese business owners collaborating with Japan Management Consultant Association led by Kota Sakagami. Japan Management Consultant Association is the largest business consultant organization in Japan with over 10,000 membership with small to mid-sized business owners throughout Japan.

Each year, Mr. Sakagami recruits 15 business owners from the vast member base who particularly show special interest in learning more about the market trend and business culture in Portland for this tour. Based on the participants’ business interests and needs, UPLIFT then tailored the tour to incorporate relevant topics and businesses to visit. The tour compromised of a series of lectures and discussion with curated Portland creatives and business leaders.

This year, we also included a few of the businesses in Hood River, Oregon where has been world famous spot for windsurfing and now, many creative offices and world renown brands have moved to this area.

Culture

One of the unique features of our tour is incorporating Portland culture into the itinerary. We began our day with morning Yoga, Qi Gong, Breathing technique, Meditation lessons to ease participants’ mind and body. Then we headed to Portland’s famous coffee shop to enjoy a freshly brewed coffee before we began our busy day.

We believe that providing participants with the unique Portland experience is immensely important in order for them to fully immerse themselves into the Portland culture and understand what the city is built upon. We would like to give a special thanks to our UPLIFT members Brenda Russel and Mikaela Jones for the amazing body movement and sound bath lessons.

Food

At the end of our busy day, we introduced our participants to our Portland’s extraordinary food culture and had dinner at some of the renown restaurants. Special Thanks to Jason French at Ned Ludd and Joshua Macedden at Tusk, who served them with some incredibly impressive selection of food for this special occasion.

Creative Companies

We also visited various creative companies and businesses that are based in Portland and Hoodriver, such as W+K, Nike, Ziba Design, Airbnb, Central Co-working space, OMFGco, Coava Coffee Roasters, Big Giant, Key Development, Phem brewery, Tofurky to learn about their businesses. The participants had the opportunity to ask intriguing questions at the end of the visit and they all seemed very inspired by these companies and their business leaders.